Direction of Fit

Abstract

In her seminal presentation of the distinction between what have since come widely to be called two "directions of fit", Anscombe described a man going shopping with a shopping list while being tailed by a private detective listing the man's purchases, and asked what distinguishes the shopping list from the detective's list. She answered the question thus: It is precisely this: if the list and the things that the man actually buys do not agree, and if this and this alone constitutes a mistake, then the mistake is not in the list but in the man's performance (...) whereas if the detective's record and what the man actually buys do not agree, then the mistake is in the record. (Anscombe, 1957, p. 56) The "direction of fit" terminology actually antedates Anscombe's monograph, as we'll see in a moment, though not for marking quite the distinction to which she drew attention; for a nice example of its use in this capacity, we may quote from Mark Platts

Disagreement and Attitudinal Relativism

“…In the following section I say what it takes to have one of these attitudes toward a proposition. 17 To get into the attitudinal relativist's frame of mind, it is helpful to consider belief through a teleological lens. 18 There are many propositional attitudes.…”

Moral Attitudes for Non-Cognitivists: Solving the Specification Problem

“…3 See Smith 1994 (Ch.4) for the classic contemporary defence of the Humean theory of motivation. Other helpful discussions of the idea of direction of fit include Humberstone 1992, Velleman 1992, and Ridge 2006a. Sometimes heirs to the non-cognitivist tradition have rejected the non-cognitivist label.…”

Rational Choice, Social Identity, and Beliefs about Oneself

“…We want a pay raise, and we believe that going on strike is the best way to achieve it. The difference between the mental state we call "belief" and the mental state we call "desire" lies in the direction of fit with respect to the world (Anscombe 1957;Humberstone 1992): beliefs are directed at the world; they are representations about the world, and they tell us how it is (whether it is true or not). Desires, on the other hand, indicate how the world should be for it to satisfy us.…”